The NBA has three referees on the floor at one time. Despite three sets of eyes, they are human and still miss calls.
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The NBA has recently begun using automated officiating to ensure the right call is made. Evan Wasch, an NBA executive vice president overseeing basketball strategy and analytics, had this to say about the use of automated officiating.
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“Turns out, computers are really good at this,” Wasch said. “So, if we can invest in this technology to get more calls right on the objective ones, we do two things. One, the accuracy of those calls, by definition, goes up.
“But we also free up the human referees to not have to focus on those calls and, in turn, allow them to focus more closely on the really difficult judgment plays that they’re so adept at and actually increase accuracy there, too. We think there’s what we call a double bottom-line benefit to doing this from an accuracy perspective.”
The NBA certainly doesn’t want to get rid of the human aspect of the game, when it comes to officiating. But if they can make the officiating more accurate with the help of computers, that is ultimately good for everyone.
